Friday, February 28, 2014

Azerbaijan-Hawaii Relations?

Azerbaijan is more than eight-thousand miles away
from the islands. This small country was once part of the Soviet Union deep in
the Caucus Mountains and right up against the Caspian Sea. It’s also pretty
wealthy with oil resources and its government has plenty of spending money. In
other words, it’s safe to presume that most folks here don’t think about
Azerbaijan all that much.

So why did two of our legislators take an
Azerbaijani holiday last summer? A few weeks ago, Civil Beat—an online news
organization in Honolulu—broke the story about how Representative Rida
Cabanilla and Mark Takai traveled to the distant country on a tour paid for by
that government. The price tag? $8,000.

Reporters came across the summer trip after spotting
it among the representatives’ disclosure statements filed with the Hawaii
Ethics Commission. Cabanilla and Takai said that they went to Azerbaijan to
attend a convention sponsored by oil companies and find opportunities to
promote Hawaii.

Cabanilla explained to reporters that Azerbaijani
lobbyists promoted the trip to improve relations with the United States.
Cabanilla apparently told Civil Beat that as a retired U.S. Army officer, she feels
it is important to foster a good relationship with Azerbaijan because of its resources
and its strategic place between the East and West.

The trip has got me thinking. A good relationship
between the United States and the former Soviet republic may be a positive
diplomatic step, but does that mean our state legislators ought to get involved?

And what about an oil-company sponsored holiday? Is that
an ethical problem? No way, says Takai. Civil Beat reported that Takai explained
to its reporters that at the time of the trip, the Hawaii Legislature had not
addressed any relevant issues that directly would benefit Azerbaijan so there
was no ethical problem in going on the trip.

But that may not be the case for the future. Taka
and Cabanilla introduced in the House this session two resolutions addressing a
very touchy subject in that part of the world.

House Resolution 13 states a number of facts that
you would not expect to find floating around our legislature. It addresses an
armed conflict that broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia as the Soviet
Union collapsed. The countries have been (and continue to be) locked in a
territorial dispute for some time.

According to the resolution, the town of Khojaly in
Azerbaijan was the site of a massacre on February 25 and 26, 1992. There, the
resolution states that six-hundred men, women, and children were killed, and
thousands were wounded and captured by Armenian and Russian forces. The
resolution marks the twenty-second anniversary of the “Khojaly tragedy.” The
other resolution urges the United States to strengthen ties to Azerbaijan in
coming up with some kind of settlement with Armenia over this disputed region.

The factual claims in the resolutions have been hotly
disputed by our local Armenian-American community and the greater Armenian
population. The strange resolutions were defeated when sub-committees shelved
them indefinitely. The local Armenian community has declared it a victory.

But the question remains: why do it? Why would these
legislators come back from an all-expenses trip to an exotic country and then
officially stake out controversial positions that have a tenuous at best nexus
to our islands?

The other legislator Mark Takai doesn’t seem to have
a problem with taking sides. Last year he—along with other American
legislators—signed off on a birthday note to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham
Aliyev. Takai congratulated Aliyev in his efforts to reduce crime within the
country and promoting allegiances abroad.

Aliyev has been criticized by many diplomats and
those that follow international relations as an autocrat. After taking office
in 2003, he eliminated term limits for himself from the constitution. He’s been
accused of running a corrupt government, clamping down on a free press, and rigged
elections. The infamous Wikileaks website released a cache of diplomatic cables
in 2012 that compare him to a mafia crime boss. Surely, Takai was aware of this
before congratulating him on reducing crime in his country eight time zones
away, right?

Takai hasn’t talked about the birthday note recently,
but perhaps his views on foreign policy will be examined soon. After all, he is
among the seven candidates running for Congress in the First District. What
exactly does Takai think about Azerbaijan?

There surely must be other places our legislators
can visit without causing all of this heat. Honolulu and the Azerbaijani
capitol city of Baku may have been sister cities since 1988, but then again,
Honolulu has 22 “sisters,” including far-off cities in Kenya, Morocco,
Venezuela, and France. Perhaps legislators should promote Hawaii in places with
less controversy. I hear France is nice.

34 comments:

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